


On The Chin

by Hyacinthz



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Character Study, Drug Use, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 16:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19930894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyacinthz/pseuds/Hyacinthz
Summary: She couldn't remember how to breathe with him just right.





	On The Chin

She couldn’t remember how to breathe with him just right.

It was just that _then_ \- back then - they’d shot their veins full and fucked, and that was fine. She’d liked him afterward, not on the bare and sweaty mattress, but under the sun. There he shone. There he saved babies and kissed puppies and lied, slick as anything. And he’d do it all drunk or high or both, and wasn’t that just the thing?

And she’d liked him afterward, when they dropped out of their hold time and back into the breathing world. She could sink into the black circles under his eyes, be rocked by the matching tremble in his hands.

And then the needle in the vein, and they’d bloody well start it all again.

But they nearly lost him one night, and for a parade of nights she coughed till she bled. She trusted him well enough that they made the hesitant, stumbling steps to the vault together.

And now she didn’t know him. She looked at him, and she couldn’t search for her own hunger in his eyes any longer. She didn’t know if she missed it or feared that it’d be hanging there once again. Had his scars always been so deeply hewn? His forehead so freckled? She’d never measured attraction when she considered their arrangement, not so plainly.

His body still fit with hers when they pleased, but she noticed more the feel of him. He was just a little soft around the middle, and where his torso wasn’t mottled with freckles, it was twisted with the old burns. His hands still trembled on her, but it wasn’t the withdrawal. 

As it turned out, his hands just shake.

She noticed his laughs, and how they weren’t all of them bitter. She noticed that he didn’t tuck his head into her neck to ingratiate himself to some old-world ideal of a woman--he wasn’t patronizing her. He just needed a cuddle now and again.

 _A loved one,_ she whispered all quiet, in her head where no one could hear it. A loved one was what he needed.

She hated to sleep all twined around someone else, but this night she let him relax against her side. His sleeping breaths slowed and, with a deliberate ceasing of effort, she fought to match them blow-by-blow.


End file.
